Current Affairs

Unladylike is a mix of storytelling and feminist commentary focused on finding out what happens when women break the rules. It just launched yesterday and we are *here for it*. Aussie podcast producer Clare Rawlinson gives us the rundown on what we can expect.

You might've seen the headlines about Tasmania’s last remaining private abortion clinic closing this month. So what does that mean in practice for women in the state? We asked Reproductive Choice Australia president, Jenny Ejlak.

Australia has spoken (a whopping 79.5% of us), and we have said YAAAAS to marriage equality. But bearing in mind that the way we got here was pretty messed up, ie. a public vote on human rights (our THD refresher is here) what happens next? A one-minute explainer

Melbourne-based sustainability expert Dianne McGrath is on the shortlist to leave for Mars, and plans to help establish the first permanent human settlement there (no biggie). We asked Dianne, 48, what she'll miss the most on Earth and how she’ll prepare for the wild ride ahead.

If you have been shaking your head/fist at the government over the last week in anger, you're not alone. Polls show a broad public support for same-sex marriage in Australia, and we know that if Parliament held a vote, it's very likely they would have the numbers to pass it. So WTF is going on?

We are a family. Just like all the other families you know. Except that because my partner Bethia is a woman and so am I, there are obstacles we face each day that remind us that – despite having spent nearly half our lives together – our family is not considered as "valid" as others' in the eyes of the Australian government.

Amanda McKenzie is the CEO of the Climate Council. The independent organisation provides authoritative climate change info to the Australian public (aka a bloody important role, given that some of our outspoken politicians still dispute the science around climate change.)

The face of TV has been slowly changing, and earlier this year, Channel Nine announced three new female presenters – Vanessa O’Hanlon, Jo Hall, and Samantha Heathwood – as part of a reboot of Nine’s regional news service. So what's it like to be a woman behind the news desk, reporting on what's important to people outside our major cities? We spoke with Vanessa O’Hanlon, a veteran newscaster and reporter — and presenter of Nine News Canberra, Illawarra, Central West and Riverina — to find out.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), which represents workers in Australia, last year took a test case to the Fair Work Commission to try and get 10 days of paid DV leave for all workers around Australia.

As she prepares to leave her role as president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, winner of the 2017 Voltaire freedom of speech award Professor Gillian Triggs reflects on the personal nature of criticism she's weathered by "white, middle-aged male" trolls over her five years in the job.

The co-deputy leader of the Greens and Senator for Queensland made international headlines when she breastfed her daughter Alia in Parliament this month. We talked to Senator Waters about what the outcry says about gender parity in politics – and what needs to change for all women in Aussie workplaces.

Having emerged as an impassioned advocate for gender equality and healthy masculinity following the murder of his 23-year-old sister, Nikita, in 2015, Young Australian of the Year Finalist Tarang Chawla reflects on what's missing from the domestic violence conversation in Australia.

Mainstream fashion brands embracing feminism isn’t an inherently bad thing. But these feminism-lite and inclusivity messages must not distract attention from the need for real changes in the fashion industry itself.

Dr Anne Aly is used to being first. The Federal Member for Cowan is, of course, the first Muslim woman to become a Member of Parliament. As an expert in counter-terrorism, extremism, and radicalisation, the Egypt-born Labor pollie was the first Australian to be invited to Obama’s White House conference on the subject in 2015. (She was also the first MP to wear a halal snack pack badge in Parliament, no doubt incensing Pauline Hanson.) So just days after Labor’s landslide win in the WA state elections — in which One Nation failed spectacularly — it only made sense to feature Dr Aly as our “first” ever THD interview.

In 2012, Russian activist and punk rocker Maria Alyokhina was convicted – along with two other members of anti-Putin collective Pussy Riot – for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" after a performance in a Moscow cathedral. She was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in a remote penal colony, and served 21 months.

Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice moved a motion in the Senate this month calling on all parliamentarians to "support and model meaningful cultural change... so we can eliminate sexism and misogyny from our society". The motion, which followed the #MeToo movement's viral growth online, passed unanimously – but will politicians put their money where their mouth is?